Eternity's War

Book 1: Chapter 7

"Skye!" Ren called out.

Skye ran back inside the warehouse no more than a second later. He'd been outside meditating, training his mind and telekinetic ability. "What is it? Did you find something?"

"East Tower," she said, excitement in her voice. "Tonight at 8:00. The president is attending a meeting there, according to his itinerary."

Skye gasped. "Are you sure? Is it legitimate?"

"I'd say so. It was incredibly hard to find. I was only in there for a few seconds before their network locked me out."

Skye smiled broadly. "Well done." He walked over to Ren and placed his hand on her back. "All hope isn't lost after all."

"I never lost hope," she said sarcastically.

"So, what's the plan? Should we storm the tower?" Skye asked, taking in a breath and suddenly feeling very enthusiastic, yet slightly overwhelmed. Situated at the far end of Shangwu Qu, East Tower was the tallest commercial building in Athenia, and a status symbol for the island nation's powerful economy. If the president was indeed there tonight, it would be the perfect opportunity they needed to finally take him out.

"Absolutely. Take the team with you and kill Archie once and for all." Ren started to giggle with excitement. They'd spent an entire year trying to find the man, who had all but vanished from society. He was elusive, and despite Ren's hard work, White Shadow had always been met with cold trails or fabricated itineraries. It was only by sheer luck that Ren had discovered this new information, which was the most promising lead they'd had in a long time.

"Will Tahlia be there?" Sierra asked, suddenly appearing behind Skye. A slight gust came in with her and blew a handful of old paper documents from Ren's desk.

Ren frowned and retrieved the paper from the ground. "I doubt it. She has no way of knowing the president will be there. But it doesn't matter anyway. This is far more important than your petty vendetta right now."

"My vendetta is no more petty than yours. We both want someone dead."

"Sierra," Skye began to lecture, "you want Tahlia dead for personal reasons. And yes, we want the same for Archie after everything he did, but it's so much more than that. If he becomes president, he'll run this country with an iron fist."

"And that will have a ripple effect on the rest of the world," Ren added. "Athenia commands a lot of power in Yuezhou. We can't let him rule. Our primary objective is to kill him."

Skye nodded with agreement. "Once we stop Archie, I promise we'll put all of our resources into finding Black Dawn and Tahlia again. Then you can have your revenge."

"Why don't you call Nikolai and invite him to come to the tower tonight?" the short woman suggested.

"Out of the question," Skye groaned, annoyed that Sierra chose to ignore the gravity of the situation. "We can't risk having an all-out war with Black Dawn while the president skulks off into hiding again."

"We're already at war with them, Skye," Tango said, emerging from the dormitory. Echo, a man taller than everyone else in the room, was by his side. "It was their fault that Foxtrot was killed."

"Can we please not start this again?" Ren pleaded. "We have a job to do."

"Fine. But if Black Dawn or the Tianzu are there, I won't hesitate to kill any of them."

Skye rubbed the exasperation from his face. "Tango, you need to focus on killing Archie. He's the imminent threat. Once that's done, we can look at stopping the Tianzu."